Jerome Williams

What is your number one concern for the 2023-2024 school year?

Our #1 concern this year is school safety. Craven County Schools has set funds aside this year for the sole purpose of upgrading existing camera systems and providing more camera coverage on our campuses. We have also accessed the outside perimeter of buildings and decided to make an effort to install more fencing and exterior lighting for student and staff safety.

What is your vision for your district in the next five years?

The next five years we plan to have all our safety and security systems all on one platform and to have a manual that can be constantly evolving to better meet the needs of students and staff. We hope to get where all of our campuses and office buildings have keycard access. This is important so that we can keep an accurate account of who is coming in and out of our buildings.

We want to get to a point where whether you’re the custodian, you’re the principal, you’re the TA, or the student, you understand what the safety protocols are from day one and you follow those same protocols from kindergarten to 12th grade. When we have a lockdown, you know what is expected of you, or when you see somebody in the building who doesn’t have a staff badge, who do you talk to? That way we’re all doing the same thing.

Our Safety Director does a great job of working with staff. We have a director who just works with the SRO’s and the safety people in the building, and he constantly drills them on protocols and procedures that they’re supposed to follow. We’re getting there. It’s just a matter of getting new people to understand what’s expected.

Can you tell me a little bit about how your team uses technology to manage work orders or tasks and follow up as they’re completed or as they’re assigned?

We do use a work order system. There’s a school-based person or a site-based person who enters the work order and we create a flow path. Once is sent in from the school it goes straight to our receptionist, and she gives it out to whatever supervisor is his craft. We try to have a one week turn around unless it’s an emergency.

We track that from the day that it’s put in, to the date that it’s closed out. If the painter has worked on it, he puts his time in. If it needs to go to the Carpenter, then he can route it to the Carpenter and the Carpenter can do his task. It’s a constant chain and I constantly get alerts of when a work order is closed out.

When I look at it, I want to see everybody’s time. I want to see everybody’s hours. I want to see any purchases that were made and what PO you used. And I need to see the end result because sometimes the end result is we have to get a contractor. Well, just because we have to get a contract doesn’t mean that work order is closed out. That means we’ve taken as far as we can go.

We get an alert if it’s an emergency. There’s a red button on our screen that keeps flashing until somebody addresses it. We do also ask that the school, if it’s an emergency, give us a phone call, say, “Hey, we put in the work order. We’ve got a toilet that’s overflowing. We need someone ASAP.”

How does your team support the mental health of students?

Well, one of the things we do is within the EC classrooms or the adaptive classrooms. W e work with the EC Director to find out what things they need and how to make it comfortable for them.

What measures do you guys have in place to ensure the safety of student athletes?

Number one, we inspect our athletic facilities twice a year. That’s the weight rooms, the field house, the outdoor bleachers, and the gym bleachers. We try to keep up because with athletics, we bring not only students, but staff and family from other schools as well. Just because they’re not our students, we still want when they come on our campuses, to compete in a safe manner.

Our Director of Safety and Security Director has worked to purchase portable metal detectors, and wands for school staff and SRO’s to use at all athletic events.